October 2026
SPARK: Seminar Platform for Adaptive Resilience Knowledge
Upcoming Seminar [October 30, 2026]
Join us for our next seminar:
Gender Equality, Climate Change and Agriculture in the Middle East and North Africa
Abstract
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is extremely vulnerable to climate change. It is also the most gender unequal region in the world. According to the Global Gender Gap report, the gender gap is highest in the MENA region (60.9 percent progress toward parity), and “at the current relative pace, it would take an estimated 142.4 years to close.”
Agriculture in the MENA region is becoming increasingly feminized, with women representing more than 50 percent of agricultural workers in some countries. Reducing gender inequality has been identified as an important response area that needs to be strengthened to enable the MENA region to adapt and build resilience toward climate change. This presentation provides an overview of the challenges and opportunities women in the MENA region experience in agriculture, the gendered effects of climate change upon agriculture, and the roles women have played and could play in the future in adapting and building resilience to climate effects.
Date/Time: Friday, October 30, 2026, 10:00 AM EST
Speaker: Prof. Bipasha Baruah
Department of Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies,
Western University, London, Ontario, Canada
